PHOENIX — Gophers star defensive end Anthony Smith made his big announcement in front of a national TV audience on Friday night.

Minnesota Gophers defensive lineman Anthony Smith (0) photographed during the teams media day held at the Gibson/Nagurski complex in Minneapolis on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

After winning defensive Most Valuable Player in Minnesota’s 20-17 win over New Mexico in the Rate Bowl, the redshirt junior told ESPN he will return to Minnesota for the 2026 season.

On Wednesday, Smith told reporters in Arizona he wasn’t sure what his future would hold: either return to Minnesota, enter the transfer portal or head to the NFL. That decision came to the surface 48 hours later.

In the Rate Bowl, Smith had six tackles, two sacks, two tackles for lost yards and two pass break-ups. One of those stops included a tackle for loss on a Lobos fake punt on fourth and 2 in the second half.

“Great player,” New Mexico coach Jason Eck said postgame.

The return of Smith is a huge boost for Minnesota; he finished the season with 12 1/2 sacks.

The U’s defensive line is losing a handful of seniors in Deven Eastern, Jalen Logan-Redding and Rushawn Lawrence, among others.

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PHOENIX — A part of Brian Urlacher must have appreciated the defensive rock fight the Rate Bowl turned into on Friday at Chase Field.

But the outstanding ex-New Mexico and Chicago Bears linebacker, who was on the Lobos’ sideline, wanted a better a better outcome.

The Gophers edged New Mexico 20-17 in overtime, with quarterback Drake Lindsey throwing a 12-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Smith on the last play of the game.

With the TD, the Gophers extended its bowl winning streak to nine straight games since 2015, including 7-0 under head coach P.J. Fleck.

Lindsey was not his finest on Friday, but he stepped up big when Minnesota needed him most, similar to how he did in comeback wins over Purdue, Rutgers and Michigan State during the regular season.

Lindsey was 18 for 28 for 147 yards and two TDs and both were hauled in by Smith.

The Gophers (8-5) were a 2.5-point favorite against New Mexico (9-4), a Mountain West Conference school in a bowl game for the first time since 2015.

The Lobos, which beat UCLA in September, were a handful for another Big Ten team on Friday. New Mexico held the Gophers to less than 230 yards in regulation and forced six punts. The Gophers had eight penalties, which set them back regularly.

“Not very clean by us, but we are the cardiac Gophers,” Fleck told KFAN postgame.

The Gophers took a 14-6 lead with Darius Taylor’s five-yard touchdown run to start the fourth quarter, but it was short lived as New Mexico’s kick returner Damon Bankston returned the ensuing kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown.

With a two-point conversion, it was tied 14-14.

Bankston, who returned a kick for a TD against Boise State in October, didn’t have to make much of a cut nor break a single tackle on the return. An absolute stroll into the end zone.

Minnesota bounced back by keeping its starting defense on the field when New Mexico lined up for a punt on fourth-and-2. Fleck was yelling “Fake” on the sideline as the Lobos’ run play was stopped by Anthony Smith for lost yards.

To start the game, the Gophers offense was out of whack, with punts on its opening two drives and a turnover on its third possession.

On fourth-and-1, Minnesota attempted a gadget play. They lined up for a tush-push formation, but the snap intentionally went under Drake Lindsey’s legs. It unintentionally hit fullback Frank Bierman’s arm on its way to Taylor.

The ball bounced awkwardly, and Taylor couldn’t fall on it. New Mexico took over at Minnesota’s 46-yard line and added a field goal off the turnover for a 6-0 lead.

The Lobos took a 3-0 lead after a 15-play, 66-yard drive in the first quarter.

After cover-your-eyes offense well into the second quarter, Minnesota put together a 75-yard touchdown drive.

Taylor started it off with a nice spin move and burst around the left edge for a 38-yard gain. Lindsey capped it off with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Smith in the corner of the end zone.

For how much Minnesota struggled to star the rate Bowl, they led 7-6 at the half.

Minnesota punted on its opening drive against New Mexico on Friday, capping a wall-to-wall season of slow starts to games.  They punted to open 11 of 12 games against FBS-level competition this season. Ironically, they somehow took a 3-0 lead to start their Big Ten game at then-No. 1 Ohio State on Oct. 4.

Minnesota made its fifth appearance in this Phoenix bowl, which ties Kansas State for the most visits. The Gophers were also here in 2006, ’08, ’09 and 2021, a 18-6 win over West Virginia.

The city of Woodbury is being considered for one of 23 detention centers the Trump administration is planning to develop to house more than 80,000 immigrants, according to the Washington Post.

The newspaper reported Wednesday that the Trump administration is developing a plan to “overhaul the United States’ immigrant detention system.” The plan would involve renovating industrial warehouses dotted around the country to serve as Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, the Post reported, citing a draft solicitation for contractors that it reviewed.

The Post said the system would be made up of seven 5,000- to 10,000-bed warehouses and 16 smaller facilities. Two of the larger warehouses would be in Texas and five more in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri and Virginia.

Woodbury was listed as one of the 16 smaller warehouses, with 500-1,500 beds, in a graphic that accompanied the article.

The Post noted that the draft it viewed was not final and the Department of Homeland Security would not confirm the plan or answer questions about the warehouses.

Officials at Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not return Pioneer Press email inquiries about the proposal on Friday.

A spokesman for the city of Woodbury said they had not been notified of the plans.

“City staff has not been contacted by anyone regarding the acquisition and/or use of property in Woodbury by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said Eric Searles, Woodbury Assistant Community Development Director.

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By JESSICA HILL, Associated Press

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The attorneys for the man accused of killing rap icon Tupac Shakur in 1996 are pushing to suppress evidence obtained in what they claim was an “unlawful nighttime search.”

Las Vegas criminal defense attorneys Robert Draskovich and William Brown filed a motion this week on behalf of their client, Duane “Keffe D” Davis, who was charged in the drive-by shooting of the iconic rapper off the Las Vegas Strip.

Davis’ attorneys argue a judge relied on a “misleading portrait” of Davis as a dangerous drug dealer to grant the execution of a search warrant at night, which should only be done in exceptional circumstances, such as if there’s a risk that evidence will disappear if officers wait until morning.

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In reality, Davis, an ex-gang leader from Southern California, had left the narcotics trade in 2008 and began doing inspection work for oil refineries, his attorneys say. He was a 60-year-old retired cancer survivor with adult children and grandchildren and had been living with his wife in Henderson, a city outside of Las Vegas, for nine years at the time the warrant was executed.

“The court wasn’t told any of this,” his attorneys wrote in the motion. “As a result, the court authorized a nighttime search based on a portrait of Davis that bore little resemblance to reality — a clearly erroneous factual determination, in other words.”

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department — which conducted the search and collected Davis’ electronic devices, “purported marijuana” and tubs of photographs — declined to comment Friday, citing the pending litigation. At the time of the search, police said executing the warrant under the cover of darkness would allow officers to surround and secure the residence, and that if Davis barricaded himself, the darkness would allow officers to evacuate the surrounding homes with the least exposure to residents.

Davis was arrested in September 2023. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and sought to be released since shortly after his arrest.

His attorneys claim Davis’ arrest stems from false public statements Davis had made in which he claimed to be present in the white Cadillac from which Shakur was shot. They say he has never offered details that would firmly corroborate his presence in the car, and that he benefited from saying he was present. He dodged drug charges by telling the story in a proffer agreement, and he has made money by repeating it in documentaries and his 2019 book, according to his attorneys.

“Think of it this way: Shakur’s murder was essentially the entertainment world’s JFK assassination — endlessly dissected, mythologized, monetized — so it’s not hard to see why someone in Davis’s position might falsely place himself at the center of it all for personal gain,” his attorneys wrote.